What are contractual effects and judicial blocks?

Contractual effects

In Brazil, contractual effects are instructions registered in receivables registries (such as CERC) that change how a seller’s card receivables (URs) are used or where they are paid.

Examples include:

Assigning receivables to a financial institution or fund (e.g., as collateral for credit).

When a contractual effect is active over a UR, the corresponding amount of that receivable is legally committed and must follow the registry’s instructions at settlement time. dLocal applies the corresponding debit and/or credit in the relevant platform or seller account, and this impact is visible as specific movements and notes in the merchant dashboard and in your settlement or reconciliation reports.

Judicial blocks

Judicial blocks are court-ordered freezes of funds, usually issued via SISBAJUD, Brazil’s official system for blocking, unblocking, and transferring financial assets.

Key points:

A court can order dLocal to block part or all of a client’s balance (merchant or seller).
dLocal must immediately comply and block incoming funds during the monitoring window.
After the block：
- The court may release the funds (unblock).
- Or order a transfer of the blocked amount to a judicial account.
- Or cancel a previous block (with a compensating release).

For platforms, this means that part of a seller’s balance can be temporarily or permanently unavailable by court order, and the impact will be visible as debit notes / credit notes in dashboard and reconciliation reports

Promessa de Cessão (assignment promise)

What is Promessa de Cessão?

Promessa de Cessão is a pre‑contractual commitment where a seller agrees that their future card receivables (URs) generated on the platform will be assigned to dLocal once those receivables are constituted.

Key points:

The UR remains registered in the seller’s name in the registry (for example, CERC).
The right to receive funds from those URs is legally earmarked to dLocal via a registered assignment promise (effect type “assignment promise”).
By registering this promise, dLocal obtains priority and protection over those receivables versus other potential claims, reducing the risk that third parties or new contracts divert the same funds.

From a platform perspective, when Promessa de Cessão is active and correctly prioritized:

Receivables generated by sellers on your marketplace are legally routed to dLocal according to the agreed flow (for example, to your liable account for funds aggregation).
The exposure of those receivables to contractual effects and judicial actions at seller level is significantly reduced, because the receivable is already encumbered in favor of dLocal.

How Promessa de Cessão works in dLocal for Platforms

At a high level, the flow is:

Seller consent during onboarding

The platform collects explicit, mandatory consent from the seller to the Promessa de Cessão in its own onboarding UX (T&Cs or dedicated checkbox).

Registration with the receivables registry

After onboarding, dLocal registers the seller and the assignment promise with the receivables registry (for example, CERC, effect type “assignment promise”).

UR creation and automatic assignment

When the platform processes a card transaction, dLocal registers the corresponding UR in the seller’s name.

If the Promessa de Cessão is active, the promise is automatically applied to that UR, assigning the right to receive funds to dLocal.

Settlement to the platform’s structure

Once contractual effects are applied, the funds are settled into dLocal’s internal account and then to the platform’s configured accounts (for example, a liable account used to aggregate seller funds in dLocal for Platforms).

What platform merchants should do

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Contact our support for further information and enablement of the feature

To use Promessa de Cessão with dLocal for Platforms, merchants must:

Include promessa consent in seller T&Cs

Make the Promessa de Cessão clause mandatory for sellers who want to sell on the marketplace in Brazil.

Follow the consent model defined in the Platform seller T&C guidelines (CPAD), under the “Promise assignment” consent for Brazil.

Send promessa information via API

When onboarding sellers through the Platforms API, inform dLocal (via the agreed field/flag) that the seller has accepted the Promessa de Cessão, so dLocal can register and maintain the assignment promise in the registry.

dLocal start to apply Promessa de Cessão

There is a short waiting period(1-3 days) until CERC confirms whether the Promessa de Cessão is applied. While this confirmation is pending, transactions sent to dLocal may still be affected by contractual effects or judicial blocks.

Handle edge cases

If a seller already has an active receivables contract with another institution at the moment of onboarding, dLocal cannot apply its Promessa de Cessão over those agendas and will notify the platform accordingly.
If a seller later terminates dLocal’s Promessa de Cessão or assigns their receivables to a different institution, new URs will no longer be covered by dLocal’s promise and will behave as receivables without Promessa de Cessão.

When above cases happen, we will send the status change through webhook. In the meanwhile, card transactions are not allowed to be processed.

By combining clear seller consent and the Promessa de Cessão model, platforms can keep their Brazilian receivables flows compliant while reducing the operational and legal risk associated with contractual effects and judicial blocks at seller level.